Vietnam: The Politics of Immobilism Revisited

Abstract

In an article written in 1996, Brandy Womack described Vietnam's slow pace of policy change and lack of decisive leadership as immobilism.1 Womack argued that there were three countervailing factors that explained why became consensus view within Vietnam Communist Party (VCP). First, Vietnam's policy of renovation had proven to be most successful economic policy ever adopted by VCP. Further success, he argued, was dependent on decentralization, decon trol, and internationalization. Second, success of renovation led to emergence of negative phenomena which required political regulation rather than more market forces. Third, success of reform efforts, coupled with a peaceful international environment, dissipated sense of national crisis, which spurred renovation in first place. As a result, conservatives have no alternative to reform, reformers cannot deny importance of order and redistributive measures. Womack also acknowledged that a number of other forces, such as centre provincial tensions and differing generational views, also contributed to policy caution. In Womack's view, immobilism implies a middle course of muddling through and policies that are conflicting in their effects ... The central lead ership is in gridlock but traffic creeps around. He concluded that the structural weakness of immobilism is that it is permanently behind curve of societal developments. This chapter reviews domestic and foreign policy developments in Vietnam during 1999 with this framework. It notes that same three key factors ? support for reforms, need for control and a non-crisis atmosphere ? still operate to constrain pace of reform.